Stephane Magnard

Boats Watercolor

Circa 1950

French watercolor of figures standing atop the stone wall remnants of castle overlooking a valley, circa 1850. Artist unknown. Original artwork on paper ...

Bright watercolor landscape of a sailboat drifting in a small cove ringed by red rock mountains by artist M. Balestié, circa 1930. Titled lower left and signed lower right. Original...

PROVENANCE: Christie’s South Kensington, England, June 10, 1986; Maynards Auction, Vancouver, Canada, December 6, 1994. This 19th cent wc depicts Charles Darwin in the Beagle’s Tender, Coastal Patagonia, Argentina. The son of an English mother and the Austrian Consul General in London, Conrad Martens pursued a career in painting following his father’s death in 1816. From the age of sixteen he studied under landscape watercolourist Copley Fielding, absorbing the traditions of the English watercolour school and Joshua Reynolds’ theories on painting. In 1833 Martens joined the HMS Beagle on a scientific survey expedition at Montevideo, South America, as ship’s artist, replacing the ailing Augustus Earle. He befriended the ship’s naturalist, Charles Darwin, whose empirical observation of landscape forms and climatic conditions would influence Martens’ practice. Martens left the Beagle in Valparaiso in 1834 and travelled to Australia via New Zealand and Tahiti, settling in Sydney in 1835 and setting up a studio in Pitt Street. Patronised by the colonial elite, he fulfilled many commissions for watercolours of the local landscape and Sydney Harbour, including Elizabeth Bay c1838, which features the grand neoclassical edifice of Elizabeth Bay House, built for the former colonial secretary...

Stanislaw Sobolewski (born in 1952) Studied philology at the Jagiellonian University (1971-1976) and painting under prof. Zbigniew Grzybowski at the Academy of Fine Arts (1974-1979)....